Blog: Insomniac, Revisited

I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly stated this, much less done so in a full on blog format, but the release of my song “Insomniac” was a traumatic one for me. If you were around at the time & a follower of mine then you would possibly remember that the song, upon its original release, had to be pulled, remastered, & redistributed. All of this was to do with background drama & poor choices that were made against my better judgment & with promises that the decisions being made would pan out & be for the best. Once again, my intuition was right on that, but that’s not what I’m here to write about today.

Last night, while working on something for my socials, I stumbled upon the series of videos that Evan & I created to promote the release of “Insomniac.” These videos stemmed from an idea that I had which I referred to as “things you do when you can’t sleep.” They featured a single shot of someone one would do when they can’t sleep & then about halfway through the 10-20 second video, the intro to the song would cut in, it would pull up a title card & give the date of release as well as a call to pre-save. I remember that we started with a much larger list of activities but ended up cutting it down to nine for the promotion; exercise, watching TV, taking a bath, playing video games, eating, texting, taking a shower, drinking, & surfing the internet. We shot these little blurb videos over the course of several evenings & filled them to the brim with little easter eggs as well, mostly as call backs or little features of the things that I enjoy. For example, the one where I was surfing the web features me going to my website, this website. It also has a “Country Music Allies” pin in the bottom right of the frame, a group that I partnered with for the release of the song. Additionally, I’m snacking on “Smart Sweets” a brand I was all over at the time & there’s an Assassin’s Creed lanyard dangling by the computer, a gaming franchise I enjoy. We put so much thought & curation into these little promotional videos that I don’t feel like people even gave that much of a passing glance to.

What strikes me as odd about “Insomniac” is that for a lot of you it still remains one of your Top 3 songs of mine, despite the fact that it is one of my lowest streaming. Background meddling & a botched release have a lot to do with that. It’s frequently one of the songs I get asked to play in the live setting most often but for the longest time it was the song that I wanted the least to do with, simply because of how grueling a process it was to get it out & how it essentially became dead in the water upon release. Nothing went right with its launch, all the way down to the album artwork file being corrupted upon hours of completion & immediately requiring a do over. I guess that was foreshadowing.

But the more time passes, the more the content from the “Insomniac” era resurfaces, the more it saddens me all over again that this song that Jared Scott, Evan, & I had so much writing, & Joshua Gleave & I had so much producing, ended up as essentially a lost cause simply because of incompetence by those who I was prodded into trusting for its release. Even when we went back in & tried to salvage the song & re-release it, everything got lumped back together & was immediately null & void again. Unfortunately, I think that this was one of the last releases that I went “all out” on with the promotion & the efforts behind it because the project that I worked so hard on & had so much fair in essentially ended up amounting to nothing. I may as well have just cold dropped the song. I guess that comes with the territory of trying to be an artist though.

There are still embers of hope somewhere inside of me that “Insomniac” will have its day. I’m not sure if or when that will be, but I still hold on to its vindication somewhere in my heart.

I understand that art is meant to be, simply, without expectation, but it’s really hard to watch the things you spent countless hours getting off the ground immediately crash & burn with no immediate chance of redemption or salvation. Countless hours, countless dollars, essentially amounting to nothing, it cuts deep.

For those of you out there who tried tirelessly to salvage this song for me upon its release, I am beyond grateful. For those of you who still stream it, who still have love for this song, I hope to be one of you some day soon, it’s just still a very tender spot of my musical catalog for me.

I will continue to revisit this song which I have exiled from my psyche, in the hopes that someday I rediscover my love for it & I hope to someday be at a place where I feel comfortable & convinced to share the full story around the goings on of it all, but until then, I leave it to you all to give the love that it so desperately deserves.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: If I'm Being Honest...

If I’m being honest these blogs have become a difficult thing to maintain. It’s not out of any desire to stop creating them or any lack of time but instead out of a lack of inspiration. I started this part of my site as a way to engage with my audience about the things that I love, specifically when it comes to food & travel. I made this my public journey because I didn’t feel that I could properly share my expertise & adventures over further points of social media & wanted a place that was distinctly my own to fill with the inner machinations of my ever curious mind. However lately this has felt a bit like a constant uphill battle.

I used to look forward to writing these entries every week, but back when I started I had content to share & insight to give out. Now I feel like I’m doing my best to come up with a topic each week that people will find interesting & engaging. I wanted to start this as an expanded travel & advise blog but along the way, be it due to ADHD or lack of funds to cover the travel aspect of this, we drifted away. None of this is to say that I don’t still enjoy crafting this blog each week in the broadest of terms, I think I’ve just lost what made me feel like this was something special & am having a really hard time rediscovering that & creating entries that I think you all will find helpful & inspiring.

If I’m being honest, I feel burnt out but don’t want to stop the content drip because I know the moment I do I won’t pick this back up again. That’s just how I seem to function. This would be thrown to the wayside like so many other content projects that I started & fizzled out on & I really don’t want that to happen with this as well.

I’m sure many of you who keep up with me on the regular have noticed that my posts have been coming in late, or not showing up at all & I promise you it’s not from a lack of trying, I’m simply feeling entirely fried. If I’m being honest I feel as though, each week, it’s a losing battle to try & come up with a topic for this site that I can sit with & write an entire blog about. I don’t want to be this way & for a while the “requested blogs” were really helping that because it took my mind off of the pressure of what I feel is a near constant failing to incept anything meaningful topic-wise into my mind. I have become jaded & disheartened by the things that used to bring me joy because, if I’m being honest, I feel entirely lost at the moment.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or not doing & it feels like everyone else has their life figured out or at least pointed in the right direction, but me. I just want so badly for someone to tell me, in earnest, what I should be doing & guide me along that path, but that’s not how life works is it? We are all our own people, our own psyches, our path is our own & it is distinct to each of us. I just feel like I got derailed somewhere along the way & I have been fighting to get back on course ever since.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant or for it to become a cry for attention because, as always, I write these blogs to forge connection. I lay my thoughts & my heart out to you all, not for your sympathies, but in the hopes that you will see this & think “wow, that’s me” & realize that your situation is not as lonely as I’m sure it feels. I’m grateful that I have the ability & opportunity to make the art that I create & to have been so many of the amazing places that fill the archives of this page, please know I never take that or your patronage for granted, but I know sometimes we all get lost & want just someone to stand up & say “I understand your struggle & it is valid.”

I will continue doing my best to post here weekly &, of course, on time, thought I can’t make any promises. I am a human after all, prone to failure & struggle, & that’s okay. You’re not always going to agree with what I have to say or the messages that I try to share & that’s also entirely okay. This is my platform to speak freely & openly in the hopes of finding like minded people or starting constructive dialogues. If you would like your own echo chamber to do the same I’d be more than happy to share my Squarespace referral code with you.

Wow, this blog has really gone awol hasn’t it?! I hope wherever you are, who eve you are, that you’re having a great weekend or a great whatever based on when it is that you found this post.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Requested Blog: Grown Ass Artists

I think I’m going to start doing these, I’ve definitely done a few unlabeled “requested blogs” in the past but I think this is going to be a thing, & I think I’m going to put up a submission form somewhere for people to send in their suggestions for what they would like to read me write about. That was a fun sentence to say by the way, read me write about. Anywho, our first official “requested blog” will be coming to us from Bryan Oliveira, who is a phenomenally talented designer that I will link in a button below! I want to also state that this blog will be more about what this request stirs in my brain than specifically answering & embellishing everything stated by Bryan.

Their prompt for me was as follows: (write about) …How as artists, life keeps pulling us away from our art, & the older we get the more of a fight it becomes to carve out time to create, but that time created is what keeps us going & fed & our creativity sustained.

The statement in & of itself is incredibly profound & honest & a feeling I’m sure many artists such as ourselves feel deeply, especially as we age out of what the industry as decided to claim as ideal time for our success. As a now thirty-one year old still trying to make it in music, I define feel this, in fact it’s something that often keeps me up at night.

I remember distinctly being asked by a higher up in a massive company in the entertainment business how old I was. When I answered “twenty-seven (at the time)” his reply was to say “well you’ve still got a few more years that you can make it in, I guess.” This sentence rings through my brain at least twice a week, if not more. It seems, at least to all of us on the outside of major label/publishing deals, that turning thirty in Nashville or LA is a death sentence. It’s a “well you tried, time to sell your soul to an office job” simply because we lacked the connections, the funds, or whatever to be in the right rooms at the right time, completely devoid of whether or not we actually have the talent & drive to take it from there. The more time passes, the more the pressure is increased to ‘give up’ & ‘find a real job.’ As if art isn’t the thing that everyone on the planet consumes & actually remembers…

In the song “Nothing New” by Taylor Swift she sings the line “how can a person know everything at eighteen but nothing at twenty-two?” A line that she wrote when she turned twenty-two out of fear that the industry would do all it can to replace her as she aged, calling attention not only to the misogyny of it all, but also that the industry has this knack of signing people who are still children & claiming their most profound & impactful work when they still are lacking a fully formed frontal lobe.

I do recall it being a lot easier to find creative time & energy when I was younger though. Time & to-do lists tend to get in the way the more the years creep on, but what I can also tell you is that what I was creating was not nearly as deep nor was it an open & honest expression of who I was & am. The blessing of time & the lessons that come with it are that we gain insight & perspective. We learn & grow & become fully fledged humans with interests & passions that surprise us. We learn to stop hiding behind the walls of perception & feeling like we have to create in a certain style or pattern simply because the people we look up to did/do. We learn that true art is the expression of the individual & not creating something just because we feel like it’s the right more or it’s what’s commercially viable or trending. In all honesty, I wish more artists were signed around my age, selfishly of course, but also because I feel like most of my friends who are in their late 20s/early 30s actually have something to say & contribute, but no one is willing to take a chance on them because of something as trivial as age. Yes there are the rare exceptions; Sia, Chris Stapleton, Old Dominion, etc., but they are definitely that, the exceptions, not the rule unfortunately.

It saddens me that grown ass artists don’t seem to be given the time or resources that our younger compatriots are, because I think it wholly eliminates & diminishes an incredible talented group of people, their individual outlook on life, & their lived experiences. Maybe we as humans are more inclined to the “mess” of growing pains & the lessons there in but a lot of those of us who are old also have that lived experience & the benefit of weaving it into our art.

If you are a grown ass artist, with a fully formed frontal lobe, keep going. Don’t give up because the industry you’re in tells you to or your parents start asking about what other careers you might be interested in or society says one thing or another. If you are talented, genuinely talented, express that! Share it with the world. Someone will connect with it, someone will see the greatness, & it will spread like wildfire. I believe in you & wish you nothing short of the best.

Love Always,

-C

Blog: Fine, I'll Do It Myself...

When I started recording “When He Was Me” I knew instinctively that I also wanted to put out an acoustic/stripped version of the song along side its more produced counterpart. Initially I had what we are now calling the “acoustic version” for its own full release, but after talking it out with PR & some other friends in the industry it was decided that we would treat the secondary release as supplemental. At the time of this decision the only version of “When He Was Me” that was completed was that of the original version, or what I’m calling the OG version & the timeline for the acoustic work’s completion was very tight. I began my “hi, let’s do a song together” texts to the normal avenues & producers I know but quickly found them all occupied with their own ambitious & excitingly full schedules so I found myself a bit at a loss of what to do. That’s when it hit me, what if I just…did it myself?…

Call it divine intervention, fortuitous winds, whatever, but the stars really aligned on this one. At the beginning of this process of doing something I had never done before, release something I produced/engineered/recorded/played entirely in the spare room upstairs, all I had was my MacBook with Logic Pro (recording software for those not familiar), my Lauten LA 320 microphone that I’d been using for voice over & demo work, & my Apollo Twin interface (how you connect your microphone/instruments to your computer). I was in desperate need of some studio monitors, a better workspace set up, & some plug-ins (effects added into Logic to make tracks sound or behave in a certain way), but I guess fortune favors the bold.

First came the desk. I was writing with the abundantly talented Frye in LA a few times ago when I was there & commented about how much I love her simple but hella effective studio set up. She sent me an entire gear list, including the studio desk she was using which sat around $300 on Amazon. I’d saved it to my wish list & never really thought much of it, that was until I started this project at which time I got a ping from Amazon telling me that the desk was on sale for a third of its normal price, $100. So here I sit, laptop propped up on my bright yellow studio desk!

Second came the monitors (speakers). I happened into McKay’s here in Nashville one day in search of an iPod for my niece. McKay’s is a used book/video/tech/etc warehouse by the way. While I was perusing the tech section I noticed a pair of Rokit 8s up on the shelf for the price of $190 for the pair. Now Rokits are fairly solid studio monitors & 8s are worth about $300 a piece brand new. So it was a steal. I asked the attendant about them, he said they’d been brought in a few hours earlier & worked great, so on home with me they went. I’m actually sitting here in between them listening to focus music as I type!

Last came the plug-ins. I was running a version of Melodyne already, I’d purchased it at a dizzyingly low price during their Black Friday Sale but I needed to upgrade the software to have it be affective at editing not just vocals, but polyphonic instrumentation (multiple notes being played at once, think of a guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, non-MIDI piano, etc.). Once again, in waltzed a deal, $99 bucks to upgrade, normally $250. Now the deck was stacked in my favor!

With all of the pieces of my studio Infinity Gauntlet now assembled, it was time to get to work!

The first thing I did was lay down a rough. Rough vocal over simple piano chords tracked on my Roland RD-700, the only technically non-acoustic instrument that I played on the track. Tracking live piano is next to impossible to make sound good in a setting outside of an actual studio. From there I added rhythm guitar, a simple chorded finger picked pattern on my Collings Triple O that was also supplemented by full swinging strums panned left & right in the latter choruses. That’s when I hit my first snag.

You see, I don’t own a bass. What I do own is a cello, the only problem was that the bow of my cello had popped meaning the fastening holding the hairs in place had broken on one end. Another problem was that my local music shop was currently out of bows & would have to order me one. However, in the interim, I decided that I was going to track cello like a bass, using it as a plucked instrument to fill out the lower range of the song. With the bones set it was now time to fill in the intricacies of the song.

I knew I wanted to pay homage to the slide & dobro in the original version but I lack both a pedal steel & a dobro so instead I opted for a simple bottle slide on my acoustic. Tracking it in two octaves I still felt it lacking so I waited for my new bow to come in & added in the cello part later.

Next came the vocal texturing. I feel like Josh & I always end up with a stack of “Ah’s” in most of the songs we do & the OG is no exception having them lay essentially the pad for the bridge. So the “Ah’s” got tracked. Then came the Gregorian section.

I always feel like Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody when I bring up the Gregorian section, to me it bears the same energy as him saying “now comes the operatic section” & while the Gregorian section was essentially just a pad in the OG version, I wanted to do it myself in the acoustic. This ended up being the lowest I’ve had to sing since the time I sang bass in Kansas State Choir for an old Russian Hymn. We’re talking Ab2’s low. (My music nerds will get that one.)

The last bit of vocal flavoring I added in were what I refer to as the “call & response” parts. These can be found in the second & third chorus & are essentially just repeating the chorus lyrics back after they’ve been sang. They mad the original recording so I felt the need to replicate them here as well.

With all of that in place I set about tuning, adjusting, equalizing, adding reverb, etc. etc. etc. which took me the span of several weeks. From there I got some feedback from friends who felt it needed a little more drive to it, so I added Cajon & Shaker into the mix. With all of these parts established it was finally time to go in & retrack the lead vocals.

I think I ended up doing around twenty-five different takes of the song mostly all of the way through. There were times where I’d listen back & feel I was still missing the line & would go in to add another five or six takes just to make sure I got it. Then came vocal compiling, cutting & reassembling the vocal lines into the one you hear today. After that I went in to make sure the timing on certain lines fit well & certain notes that were too quiet were turned up & those that were too loud, softened. This is an entirely baseless, stupid, & not meant to be a “brag” because I have no issue with the tech, but I actually barely tuned the vocals at all, I wanted that raw performance. From there I added chorus doubles & a single layer of background harmonies to keep things simple.

Finally it was time to send off to mix. Jonathan Roye was more than patient with my steep & fumbled learning curve & allowed me ample opportunity to go back & fix the numerous mistakes I made along the way, including at one point having to go back & entirely redo the Melodyne of all of my vocals (quantize tempo, reduce loudness, increase softness, tune, etc.). After a few back & forth between him & I we passed it along to Mike Monseur who mastered the track effortlessly!

All in all it was definitely a struggle for me. There were many times where I felt like giving up or trying again to find someone else more readily equipped to do it, but I’m glad I pushed through. This is definitely going to be one of those tracks that I’m not going to be able to enjoy for myself for quite a while, simply because of all the work & stress around it. It doesn’t feel real to me that I’ve put it out, it doesn’t feel real to me that I’m not able to be hyper critical of it anymore & make tweaks, because it’s out. It’s done. It’s time to move on to the next thing & let the song be what it’s going to be!

If you’d like to stream When He Was Me (Acoustic Version) you can find it in the button below!

As Always, Much Love,

-C

Release: When He Was Me

I first heard When He Was Me about five years ago now. I believe it was 2018 but it very well could have been 2019. I had a session with Josh Gleave at his studio on music row. When I walked in Josh was wrapping up work on a demo for the song that Shay Mooney had just recently come in to lay down vocals on. He played me the song in whole since I was present & it immediately grabbed ahold of me. It was one of those songs that catches your breath from the first line & doesn’t let go until the final chord strikes. Time went on & I patiently waited for When He Was Me to make an appearance on a Dan + Shay album, but it never did. As soon as the track listing for the duo’s third album came out I & I saw that the song wasn’t among them I immediately texted Josh to find out if he could reach out to Shay to see if I could cut the song myself. Shay gave not only his blessing but also sent over a folder of about six other songs of which I chose two; When He Was Me & Something To Do (we’ll get to her at a later date). Then began the process.

Being an independent artist can make getting a big boy industry song cleared amongst the big boy music industry a bit of a daunting task. After a few months of my former manager not making any headway on securing the rights we parted ways (for a number of reasons outside of the song itself). The task then fell upon Evan & I, but mostly Evan who loves himself some admin work, to get the song cleared. Of which he went through multiple different sources to find the proper avenues to secure the song.

We ended up doing the recording of When He Was Me right before the pandemic hit but I found that the more I sat with the recording, the more I felt it was lacking something, specifically where my vocal performance was concerned, so once we had a dip in quarantine restrictions & covid numbers, I headed back in the studio with Josh & Greg Breal to do a different vocal take, which I much prefer to the one we initially had. We also added a few more sets of BGVs to the song & a bit of vocoder!

After the song was sent off to Jonathan Roye for mix & Mike Monseur for master it sat. For almost three years it sat. Why you may ask? Well this is one of those songs that I wanted to put out right. I wanted all of my ducks in a row & everything to go smoothly, & thus far it has! Additionally, remember how I said I was dealing with big industry things with clearing this song? Well, that was beyond true! Evan counted last night that it took 78 different emails to different people to get this song cleared. That’s not counting the direct messages, phone calls, intermediary texts to find contacts, etc. This song took this long to put out in part because of my status as an independent artist.

But alas, we’re here now! The song has been released! It is out in the world for you all to make your own & to listen to & share amongst your friends & family & in all honesty, I feel good about it. For once I’ve got a release going smoothly with more things to follow. For once I’m not at a place where I’m sick of the song by the time it’s been released & that feels good. I’m at peace with it & am ready to see what comes of it. I’ve released the art to you all to do with as you see fit. I’ve done my part in its execution & now it’s time to let it fly!

When He Was Me was written by Shay Mooney & Benjy Davis. It was produced by Josh Gleave & vocal produced by Greg Breal with drums by Lester Estelle Jr., bass/keys/programing by Josh Gleave, & acoustic/steel/electric/dobro by Devin Malone. It was released through Distrokid & promoted by Trend PR. A special thanks to all who helped this song along the way: Noreen, Patricia, Kendall, Ashley, Alison, Amanda, Ben, & Hunter. A special thanks to Evan for all of his incredible hard work & beautiful content creation & a shoutout to The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club for allowing us to use their venue for photos!

I’ll place a link to the song below though you’re more than welcome to search it on whatever your favorite streaming site may be!

Much Love As Always,

-C

Blog: For The Love Of God, Pre-Save Your "Friend's" Songs!!!

Hi, it's me again. I know some of you may be looking at this somewhat passive aggressive title & be thinking “well, that’s not very comforting” & to that all I have to say is that neither is looking at your list of people who have pre-saved your single, as an artist, & not finding your friends among them. I know, in the past, that I have written a similar blog to this but I feel the point I am trying to make is worth restating because I don’t entirely think that most people realize the simple impact that pre-saving a song can have for an independent artist such as myself.

Pre-saving essentially is just pre-adding a song to your Spotify library. Even if you never plan on listening to the song, a pre-save tells Spotify that there is demand for the song & that they should be pushing it on their end. In doing so it boosts the likelihood that the song could actually get in front of an actual Spotify curator & not just sorted with the rest of the millions of submissions that they receive from the millions of other struggling artists trying to get heard. Tech companies only have so much bandwidth & so many employees, so showing them that something should be a priority to them will actually get it listened to. If they boost it in turn it gets said content boosted, just like any other content based platform. These technical reasons aside its also just a good practice to pre-save the material that the people that you call your friends are putting out.

I have so many people in my life who call themselves fans of mine & my work but who seem to be MIA when it comes to the pre-release of the work. Sure they’ll share the song when it comes out which is fantastic & we love to see it, but they are sorely neglecting the support that is desperately needed on the front end. It is almost more important for you as a supporter of the artists in your life for you to pre-save the song than it is for you to share it or stream it once it is released because it gives it the potential of being heard by a much larger audience than just said artist’s social circles.

Here’s the kicker of it all. You never have to listen to the song that you’ve pre-saved if you don’t want to. Ever! And guess what else? It still counts! Meaning that you can have no love for your friend’s music, whatsoever, & still support them with this simple act that takes literally five seconds to do. Is all of my friend’s music my cup of tea? No. Do I still pre-save as much as I can? Yes, of course, because I know how impactful that can be on boosting their aspirations in even the smallest of ways!

Going off of the blog that I wrote last week about supporting the hard work that the creators in your life put out; Copious Content Creation, this is hard, time consuming work that we are literally giving away for free to you all. It takes a lot of time & effort to make a song & have it at a level that is worthy of being streamed. Is it really that difficult to make three or four clicks to support that?

All of this also acts as a bit of a round about way of trying to get you to pre-save MY single that comes out in just two week’s time, When He Was Me. You can find the pre-save link in the massive button below & I would appreciate, more than anything, if you would go in & give it a pre-save, even if you have no intention of ever listening to the song!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: I, Charlie Rogers, Am...

If you’re a frequent reader of this blog you’ll know that every year I make a Pride post within the first week or so of June. Usually that post consists of the current reasons that Pride is relevant & necessary, not only as a celebration, but also as a way to draw attention to the issues still affecting the LGBTQIA+ community. This year I wanted to do something a little different. You see for years & years I feel I’ve skirted around the reasons that my passions run so deep for this particular community, though in hindsight it seems something only the most thinly veiled. I am so invested in the ongoings of the world where LGBTQIA+ rights are concerned because it is a community that I am not only happily entrenched in, but its also a community that I am a part of.

I, Charlie Rogers, am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

I, Charlie Rogers, am a bisexual man.

This is not a new development, it’s something that a lot of people have known for a very long time. It’s also not something that I’ve been overly coy about in recent years, especially around June. A lot of my friends & family have known & celebrated the person that I am for almost over half a decade now but for some reason I felt it was finally time to just be blatant & call out the rainbow elephant in the room.

I never wanted my sexual identity to be a big deal, I never wanted it to be the thing that defined me. I don’t want to be the bi-artist or the bi-influencer or traveller, because I think that I am so much more than that. Is it a part of who I am? No doubt, but is it the only part of who I am? Absolutely not.

I was so afraid of being pigeon holed for so long that I simple kept who I am & who I love locked away. I was told being open & honest would ruin my career. That I’d never make it in Nashville being open & honest about the person I am because history says that’s true, but history also gets changed all the time. Just because something is, doesn’t mean it should & though I know that’s an uphill, losing fight, it’s one that I would be disappointed in myself for at least not trying because at the end of the day, at least I can say I was authentic.

So yes, I’m bisexual. I’ve been so as long as I can remember & in a world that likes to present itself as black & white that can be hard. For the longest time I thought I had to choose, I thought that I could only be straight or gay. Even as a kid I remember only ever voicing my attractions to the females in the media, because I grew up in a time & a place where to do the opposite was taboo, ungodly, sinful, perverse. I thought I had to choose & silence a part of myself that was aching to be heard so naturally I took the easiest path & was exclusively '“straight,” but as the saying goes “we make plans & God laughs.”

I had always had flirtationships with members of the same sex, but never outright relationships. That changed when I met Evan. There was something about him that made me want to be honest, there was something about him that was calming to me, & the more time I spent in his presence & around his being, the more I found love to be the most easy, natural thing. I found myself not caring about the pretense, not caring about what others thought, not caring about the difficult path I knew I was facing by owning up to the way I felt & instead I leaned into that which ultimately terrified me.

I came out to my sister first & she met me with nothing but grace, love, & acceptance. I am so unfathomably grateful for her & the heart of overflowing kindness & beauty that beats beneath her chest. A few months later I wrote letters to my parents, to be frank & transparent, it didn’t go so great but they’re my parents & I’ve had the fortune of seeing their heartfelt transformations, something not everyone in my shoes gets the privilege of. It took a lot of time & uncomfortable conversations but I’m proud of the progress they’re making.

If I’m being honest this blog terrified me to write. As of this paragraph I’m on my third rendition of it because I kept diverting course to what was comfortable & writing the blog I typically write in June, about the current state of Pride, even though I said I wasn’t going to do that right off the bat. I’m actually typing above basically a fully finished blog about the 2023 GLAAD Accelerating Acceptance Report as the link to the report sits staring me down from my tabs. That wasn’t my purpose today, that wasn’t why I sat down to write. I didn’t come to play it say or continue the status quo because I’m tired of that. I’m tired of hiding parts of who I am out of fear or because I think it somehow protects me. I think all that it does is diminish me. It does a disservice to you as a reader of these postings, as a listener to my music, as an observer of my life, & for that I am sorry.

I know we all must do things in our own time but this is something that has been screaming from me at the inside for far too long & I finally decided that it was time to put on my big boy pants & be an artist, not just a pretender.

I say to you all, once again, with my whole chest; I, Charlie Rogers, am a bisexual man!

I want to wish you all the happiest & safest of Pride Months wherever you are on your journey. If you have any questions for me please feel free to leave them below or reach out directly! Remember, your timing is your own just as your feelings & your life are. I’m proud of you & as always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Rediscovering The Joy In Your Passions

This past week I had the utter privilege of spending some time with a few fellow artists & friends in Arizona at a songwriter’s retreat put on by the Songbird Society out of Adelaide, Australia. This camp was centered entirely around two concepts; tension & release.

The first point of interest, tension, was meant to help us as songwriters find the points of tension within our creativity that keep us from creating to our fullest. We each were given a series of prompts at the beginning of the day, after a morning yoga session, & asked to think about them throughout the day & bring them with us into the sessions we were given. The rules were simple regarding the songs themselves. Whoever’s idea the song started as had right of first use. The sessions were also meant to be open, honest, & vulnerable & established a safe space for expression & transparency. The songs that each of the two groups of writers produced were organic & an amazingly natural flowing process of creation. When snags were reached, they were easily talked & worked through without allowing the session to get bogged down & turned into a grueling task. The art that was created in these sessions was free, personal, & inspiring.

Following our sessions on the first day we sat down to engage in symposium. Each of us took turns discussing the areas of our lives that we felt carried tension, be it personal or creative. From there we were prompted to see ways forward through our lives & creative process that would allow the alleviation of said points of tension.

The second day focused on release. We started the day with a five AM double black diamond hike up the side of a mountain & then spent the remainder of the morning in ease while contemplating the prompts we were given post hike regarding the release of our points of tension. Sessions took place in the early afternoon after we’d regained our energy & footing & were once again an inspiring free fall into the depths of what it is to be a songwriter & to create amazing, personal yet still widely appealing, art. Both sets of sessions ran into often outright painful points of tension for the focal songwriter but both groups worked through them in a loving & understanding manner. The evening concluded with us showcasing our songs & once again engaging in symposium.

On the third day we shifted course a little. We ended up setting two rooms in which the producers/engineers on the track were given a prompt that would put them out of their comfort zone, allowing them to experiment through trial & error in an affirming & encouraging space. The writers for each of these rooms were not set but instead kind of ended up happening by happenstance & once more, beautiful, innovative art was created!

My point in bringing up my week & telling the base story around it is not to showcase or showoff how great & amazing a creative experience I was privy to, but instead to encourage. You see we all left this week (there were more days that just the three where we did other engaging & creative pursuits) with a new found sense of purpose, with a newly established spark of creativity. Songbird took a group of individuals, a lot of whom knew each other very well, & fostered an experience that expanded & fine tuned not only our interpersonal relationships but also our creative spirits. We all left the camp with hope & optimism & a joy for the art of songwriting that I personally had lost.

We’re all led to do the things we do out of passion. We’ve all heard the saying “do what you love & you’ll never work a day” but so many of us end up resenting the thing we started doing out of love & enjoyment because it becomes work & loses all sense of fun. I know I can speak to this personally by saying that a lot of the writing rooms I’ve left in the past few years have left me almost with an icky feeling stirring around my gut, because that love of what was being done & what was being created was absent. Now, that’s not to say all writes were like this but there was truly something different about the writing that was being done & the spirit in which it was being created that made me feel reborn.

So often we go into our work with the purest intentions & somewhere along the way lose sight of the reason behind why we started it in the first place. I mean, to be honest, I was really starting to question whether or not this was something I even wanted anymore because of how grueling it had become. I knew, deep inside that the answers was ‘of course’ but I could for the life of me find that ember that was still holding on to the hope of what I love doing.

How does this apply to you? Well I ask you, when was the last time you felt inspired & in love with the work that you do? When did you lose that & why? These are not things that are irreversible, you got into the rut somehow & there’s always a way out whether that lies in the past or in moving forward towards the future. In all honesty, I spoke to my father about the week & he said something rather jarring to me. I said that for once writing doesn’t feel like work, it feels free & creative & fun. To which he replied that work should feel like work, that’s what it is. Which then led me to this blog because I know so many people who are miserable doing the things they set out to do with the purest intention because they’ve lost the spark that brought them to where they are now.

Your work shouldn’t be draining, especially if it’s something you love doing. It should be life giving & inspiring & if you find that isn’t the case I would challenge you to take the time to figure out why. To find your points of tension & release them so that you can spend the time living in a place that brings you happiness & satisfaction, not just potential profit & gain.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Writing The Hit

I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve walked into a session & had another artist or a writer say “are we going to write a hit today?” to which the proper response is always “of course” or “I sure hope so,” because let’s face it, nobody wants the negative energy of a “statistically, probably not.” Lately I’ve been convening with a lot of different writers, most of the time over drinks or a meal, & this topic of “I just need to write a hit” has come up time & time again. If you’re someone reading this who isn’t in the music world, I don’t want you to tune out, because in actuality, the broadness of the topic at hand may surprise you!

When the notion of ‘writing the hit’ is presented to me it automatically stirs up feelings of commercialism, of pandering, of conformity, & that’s not to say that there aren’t things you should strive for in your art or expression, to an extent. I think that if any of these feelings detract from your art or minimize your personal experience they are a hindrance, not a leg up, & should be avoided at all costs. If, on the other hand, these sentiments match who you are & what you bring to the table, fire away, the goal here should be, after all, authenticity.

There naturally has to be some for of commercial viability for something to be successful, but I often think that the idea of what is successful based on what has been successful pigeon holes us into a narrowed scope of thinking. Instead of allowing the imagination & the self expression to run wild, we end up worrying more about whether or not what we’ve created or plan to create will fit into the already etched out niche of what has been successful in the past. I would argue that playing into the hand of the road well trodden may lead to limited success but it also stumbles readily into the realm of the forgotten.

People who are trail blazers, in any industry, are seldom, if ever, those who followed the status quo. They are those who followed their gut & pushed the boundaries of what was deemed commercially viable. Let’s use an example from a few years ago. When Billie Eilish exploded onto the scene & immediately became popular, every label & their mother scrambled to find the next her, instead of continuing the search for something just as unique. They all sought to capitalize on that which was already raking in the capital. This happens not only in the music industry but in literally every other industry I can think of where something is successful & everyone else hops on board to try to ride the wave that sensation has created.

A lot of those who I was talking about this concept of ‘writing the hit’ with this week are also artists & are looking for that one song that will break them, something I’ve heard for years & years & years in this industry but I find in doing so, in chasing the monetary or status based success, we diminish what makes us unique & interesting as artists & individuals in favor of a brief minute on the well worn path instead of carving our own niche & finding those out there in the world who relate to us as we are, not how we think they should.

People are pretty good at sniffing out a phony, call it the uncanny valley of expression, & their ride in the limelight is often short lived because usually the person who blazed the trail they dipped into is already making the trek better than anyone else could. Why? Because it’s authentically who they are. If you are an artist, an inventor, a painter, a poet, a writer, a speaker, a ceo, a whatever, you have a unique outlook on the world & life that literally no one else shares because no one else looks through your eyes & has the lived experience that you do. No one else has the same genetic make up, the same voice (literal & figurative), the same neurological mapping, the same beats of their heart, the same chemical values, the same stacks of cells that you do, so stop trying to fit into the mold of someone who will never be you & someone you will never be. It’s a lot more interesting to create something novel & authentic than it is to be just another wanna be copy cat.

I hope you all have a great week or weekend whenever this blog happens to find you!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Censoring Myself As An Artist

I think I’ve reached a point as a songwriter where I’m actively censoring myself. It’s not something I intended to do or wanted to happen but alas, that is where I find myself. I don’t think that I was always this way nor do I think a lot of the songs of my past are vague on the details of my personal life but I’ve had events happen in my life where people I’m close to have hurt me deeply & I find myself incapable of putting pen to paper or note to track out of a fear of hurting their feelings.

This is a problem I developed a couple of years ago that I am waking up to. You see, there are times where those in your life who support & cheer you on do the most undeniable damage they can to you & all you feel like you can do is march on & hope that time heals the wound & it doesn’t happen again. A lot of times these people don’t even know that the'y’ve caused you pain or that the things they’ve said or left unsaid made it to your eyes or ears & dug a sharp gash in your heart. I had one of these & while I wrote several songs around the events in question I began to self limit because I felt they were songs I could never share or release because they would upset the people they are about. Here in lies the paradox for me.

The thing that sucks is that I know these are songs that need to see the light of day because the struggles that I went through are not unique to my person & in releasing them to a broader audience they stand a chance of helping someone else out there who is struggling. I also understand that I am doing myself a disservice by locking these songs behind the screen of my iPhone or the hard drive of my computer & that the greatest art often comes from the greatest pain. In all honesty I’m looking at myself going “wtf am I doing,” as I write all of this into a blog even though I’m not specifying anything.

But here’s the problem. Art is expression. It’s meant to evoke an emotion from the listener, viewer, taster, etc. & by cutting myself off from the art that hurts, the art within me that is real, I am censoring myself as an artist & producing blunted content that helps no one & limits my growth both as a human being & as an artist. In shying away into what is safe like a chastised dog I have placed a wall between myself & the true art that lies in wait within me & I’m not sure I know how to tear it down.

The easy answer to that, naturally, is share & release the songs, but they are songs that require difficult conversations & may cause further damage to a wound that has found some form of healing, even if It’s not how I would like. But what must be done to the bone that has been set improperly & healed crooked? It must be unmade to heal properly. It is a redemption that my heart yearns for but that I fear is nothing more than a fantasy, so I sit stuck in indecision & with a great filter hindering my art.

This is true for those of you reading this who may not be artists as well. I think that we often times allow our ache to be swept under the rug so that we can continue to have certain relationships where we feel the connection outweighs our suffering. It’s a hard road to tread & a hard decision to make, especially if the wound is old. But I feel that we limit ourselves entirely by doing so, not just in the artistic sense but in our development as human beings. It’s often said that you can tell when someone experienced unresolved trauma because they often stagnate in their personal growth. People harmed at 25 remain the same mentally emotionally as they move into their 30s because they would rather cover the wound than face it.

I know I am not alone in this &, if this resonates with you, I hope you know that you are not alone. Your reservations are just as valid as your pain but can you imagine just how joyous it will feel the day that pain is set free, the day the conflict that has been eating you up inside is resolved? Maybe it is worth it, maybe it’s not, but in the end, that’s up to you to decide, just as it is for me. I want so badly to lean into the freedom but I’d be lying if I said fear wasn’t holding me back. As my friend Stephen Lovegrove says, “the path that scares you the most is usually the correct one.” Maybe it’s time to take the scary path & step out of the pain that has become comfortable. Maybe it’s time to step on a few toes.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Story: Let's Go Back, Back To The Beginning

Earlier this week I grabbed coffee, or rather tea because I’m trying to cut my caffeine intake, with a new friend. At one point in the conversation he brought up my blogs. You know, this thing you’re currently feasting your eyes upon. The first thing he asked me was “how & why did you get started doing blogs” & it occurs to me now that I’ve never formally had that conversation with you all who return week after week, drift in & out, or have randomly stumbled upon this here post. It was an interesting thing to talk about & kind of piece together along the way as I told him the story but the idea of recounting it here hadn’t occurred to me until today when I sat down to write, at which time I was met with a random passing “how did you get started, how far have you come?” question while pilfering through the internet.

My blog page started as a recommendation blog. I had a former manager who commented on the fact that I always have food & drink recommendations for people when they go anywhere & that I should compile a list so that people can access that information at any time without having to text or DM me. The first one, naturally, was Nashville. I compiled a list of restaurants on one blog post & bars on another & published it to actually fairly moderate success. In fact the blog still remains actively edited to this day when I remember to make edits & feel like adding in new restaurants/bars or when some of the ones on the list have closed. From there my recommendation blogs continued. I did an LA food one next, followed by LA drink, then came Kansas City, which I’m pretty sure is a combination blog, & Portland, which I know for a fact is.

Now around this time the mailing list craze was really kicking off & I went to a seminar about marketing for artists such as myself. Someone on one of the panels brought up that one artist they knew did a weekly blog where she detailed & documented her week & then sent it out as a newsletter before the weekend. This sparked the idea of these now weekly blogs.

I knew I didn’t think my day to day life was interesting or varied enough to entice readers to come back week after week so instead I opted for a different approach. My blogs would be varied. Sometimes they would be recommendation blogs, sometimes recipes since I cook quite often, sometimes they would actually be about an event I experienced if I found that event to be interesting enough for a retelling.

Around the time I started to write blogs happened to coincide with the events & civil rights travesties of the Trump Administration. As someone who found himself incredibly politically literate & in possession of a platform, I started writing blogs highlighting the damage that was being done to The USA at large. Additionally, within that same vein, I started to write think pieces directed towards those reading who I knew might fall on the conservative spectrum about more liberal policies & why they are beneficial. I tried to frame them from the perspective of someone who would be against them to mixed success. I continued on this track, using my blog to post my opinions as well as resources when natural or political disasters struck. It wasn’t until May of 2021 that I started doing travel blogs.

Evan & I ended up in Maui right around the time that the tourism industry reopened in Hawaii. I had gone to finish the open water side of my dive certification & had just invested in a GoPro to grab footage of our time there. I did it partially for content & also so the people I knew that cared to know about my adventures had a place to turn to & get the inside scoop of all the goings on of my travels. Additionally it allowed me to combine a lot of the elements of what I was doing; storytelling, recommendations, etc., into one single post in one single place. The thing I ended up underestimating was the time in which each of these travel blogs take.

So the travel blogs ate up a lot of time, most of them ended up being around a two to three week series that took me around the totality of the week to complete for each. I had to write the stories, link the places, go through edit & add the photos, place the photos aesthetically, etc. etc. etc. but I quickly found that these were my most popular submissions. That’s until I wrote a blog called “No Hate Like Christian Love.”

NHLCL was really a think piece for me, a plea for the evangelicals of the world to look at how they were asked to behave in the book they claim to cling to & compare that to the way they are actually perceived by the world & also understand why “the church” is dying. It remains my most popular blog to this day, out performing each of my weekly submissions during the week they’re posted. NHLCL still garners easily around one hundred individual views a week just from people either searching for something of the like or having stumbled upon it some other way. It has, aside from each of my travel blogs, been the biggest source of outreach & foot traffic to this, my website.

So where are we today? Well, this piece, I suppose, could be filed under “story.” The shape that my blog has taken over the years is very reflective of who I am as an individual, all encompassing. I think, if I were to choose a direction for it to go, it would mostly remain in the story telling world, specifically as a recounting of my travels & the highs & lows of my life. I like to think that my blog has a positive influence on the world, as small or large as that is, but I suppose that’s for you all to decide, not me. The hard part about getting travel content for you all is getting to travel, having the funds & time to scour the globe for my next adventure to bring back & share with you all. If that weren’t as much of an issue, I think this blog would definitely take that shape more often than not. I’m always down for feedback though! I’d love to know what you’ve liked & disliked about my blog over the years. I’d love to know what you’d like to see more of or less of. I’m always intrigued to know who is reading my posts, why, & what they got out of it.

As always,

Much love to you all & thank you for supporting this crazy weekly thing that I do!

-C

Blog: Charlie Rogers, Renaissance Man.

I don’t remember in which grade we discussed the renaissance in history class. I’m not even entirely sure whether or not I was in middle or high school. While I’m pretty sure it was the latter, I remember immediately becoming obsessed with the idea of being “a renaissance man.”

This is a term that I heard pop up recently, though I can’t for the life of me recall where. I remember someone saying they always strove towards being a renaissance man themselves & it immediately struck a chord of commonality in me. So what exactly is a renaissance man?

According to the Oxford dictionary a renaissance man is:

“a person of many talents or areas of knowledge.”

— Oxford Dictionary, Renaissance Man

Some famous examples of which include the likes of Leonardo DiVinci, Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei, & Nicolaus Copernicus, all who excelled in multiple fields of study. The moniker of “renaissance man” is not limited to men though, nor is it limited to the time of the renaissance, with there being quite a few “renaissance women” throughout history as well as “renaissance people,” if we are being all inclusive. Nor was the idea specific to the time, though I feel it is the most prominent within culture at large. Before the renaissance individual there was the Greek concept of a polymath, having learned many things. This list includes individuals throughout early history such as Archimedes, Hypatia, Ptolemy, Imhotep, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Zhang Heng, Al-Kindi, Shen Kuo, & Averroës. Farther into history we get Ben Franklin, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Jefferson, Issac Newton, etc. etc. etc. Catching on to the concept yet?

So why did this become a small obsession of mine? What was it about the renaissance polymaths that made me say “ooo, that!” Well, I’ve always wanted to be a jack-of-all trade, eliminating the “master of none” part of the saying. I never wanted to be someone who was exclusively known for one thing & that’s why finding a Capital C “Career” has been difficult for me. I never JUST wanted to be known as a singer or a songwriter, I wanted to be known as the multidimensional human that I am. That’s part of why I started writing these blogs, because I felt I had more to offer the world than just the songs I sang & the performances I gave. Can we chalk it up to ADHD & chasing the dopamine a little bit? Of course. But I highly doubt any of you out there ever lived your life wanting to be one note.

So where does that place me? Well, for starters it makes it very hard for me to play the long game in the Capital C Career world. All I’ve ever wanted is to have as many plates spinning in the air as possible & to make those plates as relatively self sufficient as possible so that I can return to them with my fancy. My brain stretches me in so many different directions that the clear path forward for any given career seems impossible to me. Let’s talk about just right now shall we? Where am I at right this minute.

Well, Charlie Rogers right now is a blogger, as I sit at this computer I am a blogger. Not just am I a blogger, I am a travel blogger, a food critic, an advice columnist, a humanitarian, a recipe creator, a motivational speaker, an encourager, & a pundit. That’s just within the digital walls of this section of my website. Swipe one page up & I am an artist, a musician, a songwriter. Click on my socials & I am an influencer, a bumbling comedian, an adventurer. Search me on YouTube & I am an actor, a singer. Meet me in person & I am a scholar, wildly spiritual, peacefully grounded, a zoologist, a marine biologist, a botanist, a foodie, a connoisseur, a collector, a chef, a mixologist, an explorer, a lover, a brother, a son, & a friend. Look inside my mind & you’ll find a stoic, a wanderer, an inventor, a well of ideas, a catalyst, an empath (even though I hate that word & it’s connotations), a free spirit. How do you sum all of that up at all times? How do you “market” all of that at once?

I think in a lot of ways we all fit the renaissance man mold, it’s just that some of us, like myself, wish to act upon it. I wish to be known for all of my aspects, not just the one or two that I can focus on at a time. I want to be the touring singer-songwriter, I want to be the inventor, I want to be the philanthropist, I want to be the actor, to be the influencer, to be the traveler, the humanitarian, to be the food critic, the revolutionary, & the jack-of-all trades, but I often find myself lost in the constant tug of war these concepts give biding for my time & my mental space.

For now I’ll just claim the moniker. Here I am, Charlie Rogers, Renaissance Man, what I shall be in the future has yet to be written, but I can’t wait to see where I end up!

Here’s wishing you all a fantastic week or weekend, whenever this blog has found you.

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: #Goals! Wait, Scratch That, #VisionBoards!

I’ve never been much for goal setting, though I’ve never been entirely sure why. Whether it has something to do with the fleeting fancies of ADHD or the feeling that somehow, if I don’t complete everything on it, I’m some sort of a failure, I’ve never been able to stick out my goals & make actual steps towards their achievement. That’s not to say I never meet my goals, but for some reason there’s a sterile pressure around the idea & practice of goal setting; it feels oddly corporate or cheesy, like something you do in a quarterly review with a higher up who really doesn’t care whether or not your aspirations are met. I guess a part of me still attributes goal setting to the academic setting, a worksheet to hand in for trivial credit that never actually amounts to much.

If you’ve read my previous blogs that were written around the transition between the old & new year, you’ll see that I also am not an advocate for the new year’s resolution, nor for that matter is science. Simply stated, they don’t work, they fizzle out. To some degree I’d say I feel the same about goal setting. In all honesty, I’m sure, if you’re like me, that you saw the title of this blog about “goal setting” & probably didn’t even click the link. I guess we’ll never know though seeing as the simple window shopping didn't come in to investigate.

This past year both myself & my lovely friend, Kate Cosentino, came across the same TikTok around the same week. It was a woman talking about how she, like me, hated the traditional form of goal setting & why said past goal setting attempts didn't work for her. Her approach, instead, was that of a guest who had previously appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. If their segment they talked about vision boards & what to do with them/how to place & arrange them in a way that allows you to use them towards the aims you were after. Their method was quarterly, requiring a new vision board every three months, & asked you, not only, to visualize your board on the front, but also to write your visions & goals out on the back. In this way it was similar to the “Mind Movies” that Dr Joe Dispenza uses in his seminars to teach shifting perspective & mental energy in alignment with the things you desire. As aforementioned, the vision board you’ve created is meant to be revisited on a quarterly basis, the only difference from your first board being that you are meant to review & revise.

Let’s say you put on your vision board that you want to rekindle a relationship with your parents. If at the end of Q1 you’ve made attempts & gotten no where near where you want to be you write on the back of your Q2 vision board the same goal emphasizing the things that worked & writing & evaluating a new path forward. I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that you’re meant to write how you plan to go about your visions on the back of the Q1 board.

Another major component of the vision boarding is that you’re meant to do so with a group & share your vision board with said group when you are finished. The day Kate & I came across out vision board TikTok we both planned an evening with Kimi Most & Evan to create together & share. This outward expression of your desires helps to get the word out, it helps to solidify the things you want in the words you say. After all, how can it be known what you want if you won’t ask? In this way it gets you accustomed to speaking on your wants, your shortcomings, & your plans with those who will love & nurture you along the way. It also allows people the chance to help you if something comes up on your board that they feel they have insight on.

So how did my vision boarding go? How did it turn out. Well, much like I mentioned above with goal setting, we all fell off the wagon. We did the one evening of work & then never followed up with the next three quarterly reports. That’s not to say it was a failure though as yet another aspect of this vision board journey is that you place your board somewhere you see it daily & somewhere people who enter your home will see it & can ask you about it. Again, the goal is to talk about the things you want, to keep them at the forefront of your mind so that they become the magnetic north that guides your internal compass. Mine & Evan’s have been in the kitchen, right next to the place where we consume majority of our meals. Both boards are highly visible & both have been talked about openly amongst each other, friend, & the like. I’d say of the twenty-five things I have on my board, around seven of them came true in one form or another. That’s not bad for not following the program to the letter you’re supposed to.

So why do I draw attention to all of this? Why do I talk vision boards, goals, & the steps it takes to actualize them? Well, because I’d like to, if I may, use the last half of this blog as a digital vision board, so to speak. I’m sure in the type format it will come out looking more like a goals list but I promise you, on the other end of this I will be making a vision board to represent all of the things listed below & probably more. I’m doing this here as a form of accountability. We’re meant to share & talk about our dreams & that’s what I’m doing here. I’d also like, if you may, for you to remind me to revisit this quarterly, checking off & adjusting as we go along!

I wish you all the happiest of new years, filled to the brim with love & joy!

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Charlie’s 2023 Digital Vision Board

-Sign A Publishing Deal (Smack, Universal, Warner Chapel)

-Get At Least Five Outside Cuts

-Tour As An Opener For A Larger Act

-Sign With A Talent Agency (WME, CAA, ACA)

-Get Paid To Travel

-Get Paid To Promote The Products I Already Use

-Cross Two More Continents Off The Total Seven (Still Need South America, Australia, Africa, & Antarctica)

-Release A Minimum Of One Song Per Quarter

-Get Verified Across All Social Platforms

-Grow Creatively

-Help More People

-Get Social Numbers Up (Instagram 20K BYE, TIKTOK 10K BYE, ETC)

-Get 1K Spotify Followers

-Get On Editorial Playlists For Spotify & Apple Music

-Visit Japan

-See The Northern Lights (Preferably In Iceland)

-Become A Master Diver

-Have At Least One Song Trend

-Write More Honest Lyrics

-Cut Medicine Written By Harry Styles

-Do More Features

-Add At Least Five More Michelin Stars To My Belt

-Find Daily Moments Of Gratitude

-Get Back Into Eating In A Healthier Manner

-Hit The Gym At Least Four Times A Week

-Walk My Dogs More

-Spend More Time With The People Who Bring Me Joy & Less With Those Who Don’t

-Find A Consistent Form Of Financial Freedom That’s Not Soul Sucking

-Embrace The Unknown

Travel Blog: United Kingdom: Part One- York & The Festival

As many of you know, I have a great love for the United Kingdom & the people that live there. It has also been clear, for many years now, that the United Kingdom also shares a great love for yours truly & my music! My first trip there, back in August of 2019, was actually a trip entirely planned around a festival, Park Fest, in Stranraer. Again, that was back in 2019. Naturally, due to the global pandemic, Park Fest was put on hold for 2020 & even 2021 making its resurrection this year some what of a homecoming for a lot of those involved. I was asked fairly early on in the planning phases of this year’s Park Fest whether or not I’d be willing to make the trip to play it, I was more than happy to snag a spot in the line up.

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THE UNITED KINGDOM

PART ONE:

Day One

The original plan for the trip was to arrive Thursday morning, grab the rental car, & immediately make our way to Dumfries. When planning Ali, who was gracious enough to play host to me & contract Ross to help assemble a band on my behalf, & I had originally talked about having the band rehearsal for the show on that Friday before heading to Stranraer on Saturday for the festival. However, plans change & we ended up having to push rehearsal to Saturday afternoon to accommodate all of the musicians playing, totally fine! So now having a new day free we decided to go up the East Coast of England & stay the night in one of the towns there.

We arrived around mid to late morning having barely slept a wink on the flight over. Our immediate mission on the way to the rental agency was to poll our destination. We reached out to all of our UK friends asking whether we should go to Newcastle, Nottingham, Cambridge, or York. Everyone basically unanimously gave us York, so we started up Central England towards York.

We arrived in York in the early evening beelining to our hotel where the plan was to shaft from our travel clothes to something nicer in which to explore the town & take a few choice photos here & there! Our hotel was the Hilton York Tower, set literally across the street from Clifford’s Tower, one of the largest remaining fragments of the York Castle.

Once checked in, showered, & changed we set out to explore the town of York before our evening reservation at the North African restaurant, Los Moros.

Evan had this idea to take what he referred to as my OOTD, or Outfit Of The Day. Despite having packed in a frenzy I had managed to piece together a unique outfit for each day of our trip all while maintaining a suitcase weight of around 40 lbs & compensating for the swings in weather & the varied temperatures we would be experiencing throughout our eight days spent in the United Kingdom.

We actually did a proper photoshoot too, going around the York City Centre finding cool backgrounds to fill the negative space of each of the photos. For this OOTD I had chosen a Scotch & Soda Tan Knit Button Shoulder Sweater, a pair of Light Blue AG Jeans in the Tellis fit, Brown Aston Grey Work Boots, & Keiko glasses by Warby Parker. It was a tad chilly in York so the covering was much appreciated.

After we were satisfied with the photos taken we stopped off in The Shambles, the street of shops that inspired JK Rowling’s creation of Dragon Alley for the Harry Potter books. The parallels are abundantly clear to all who have seen the street as well as partook in Potter media. After our exploratory walk it was dinner time.

Los Moros is up near York Minster on the North side of the town center. It is in a small, unassuming three story town home that you would never guess, from its exterior, is brimming with color & flavor. Upon arriving we were shown upstairs to our table over looking the street below. I swung back downstairs to wash my hands having tripped on one of the steps near the riverside & was greeted by the cutest of outdoor courtyards where people dined under lattice adorned with tiled lamps & greenery.

Dinner was exquisite. We ordered a bottle or Romanian Pinot Noir to split & order off the menu “family style.” Our dinner consisted of a bowl of Casablanca Olives, Hummus with Rose Harissa, Olive Oil, Pine Nuts, & Flat Bread, Batata Hara, a Spicy Potato dish with Coriander, Garlic, & Turkish Pepper Paste, ZFC Chicken fried in Za’atar & Sumac with a Preserved Lemon Mayonnaise, Smoked Haddock Crocketts with Rosa Harissa Aioli, Beef Tanjia; Slow Cooked Ox Tail with Saffron, Preserved Lemon, Button Creamery Cumin Gouda Mash Potatoes, Pickles, & Lamb Jus, & a Chocolate Cardamom & Coffee Mousse with Chantilly Cream & Pistachio Crumble. Need I say more?! All of it, without exception, was incredible. There isn’t a thing within that order that I would change or alter!

The original plan after dinner was to go out, to hit the town & a few cocktail bars, however, the lack of sleep caught up to us & we made our way sheepishly back to the hotel with stuffed bellies. Pretty sure we were both asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

End Of Day One

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Day Two

We awoke later than we had intended, our initial plan was to get on the road early to Dumfries but we decided to roll with is & grab breakfast before our cross-country drive. I had scouted a restaurant just a short walk from the hotel called The Blue Barbakan. The Blue Barbakan is a Polish Restaurant with an “extra multi-European twist.” We, however, arrived around fifteen minutes prior to their opening & resort to initiating the daily hunt so many of us engage in for caffeine.

Coffee was found just across Foss Bridge from The Barbakan at a very quant little cafe called Kiosk. We used to queue formed out its door as a gage for the coffee being brewed inside & were not let down by the parade of patiently placed patrons. The coffee was wonderful, the venue charming. The owner had even thrown an assortment of ceramic ware specifically for his shop of which the title card for them read “Here There Be Monsteras,” something I still am in awe of each time its cleverness passes my brain.

Coffee acquired & consumed & time passed it was now time to return to The Blue Barbakan!

We stepped up into a wood paneled room adorned with framed photos & chalkboards baring the restaurant’s specials. We were instructed by a woman, who I assume was the owner, to sit anywhere we like so we chose a table sat next to a lace curtained window overlooking the bridge. I ordered another coffee & a water & when I asked the matron of the house what I should get she suggested the Full English. Not usually one to do so, I ignored her recommendation as a weeks worth of “full english breakfasts” were staring me down. I opted for the Duck Rumor with Smoked Salmon & Evan the Poached Eggs with Smoked Salmon.

I was elated with the Duck Rumor. Truthfully, I am so glad I ignored her suggestion & went with my gut. Duck Rumor is a ramequin filled with Buttered Creamed Spinach, topped with Smoked Salmon & a Duck Egg before being baked in the oven. Think of it like an Eastern European Uova In Purgatorio. It was served with fresh Brown Bread to scrape the contents of the ceramic over, I could have eaten it forever.

After we paid the bill we popped back over to our hotel where we gathered our belongings & set off again, waving York a very fond farewell.

The ride to Dumfries took us up by Newcastle, where we originally had planned to stay. We got stuck in traffic here as one of the highways is currently undergoing rather massive renovations. Passing by the Angel of the North we made our way West along the A69, a route that used to be used to patrol Hadrian’s Wall, of which many of the pieces still exist to this day. From Carlisle we went backroads all the way to Dumfries where we arrived in the mid-afternoon.

Not to miss my OOTD, Evan immediately had me go out into the neighborhood & do I brief shoot. Never have I felt more self conscious doing a photoshoot than in the middle of a residential neighborhood but that day the outfit consisted of a Blue Goodlife Pullover, Tan Tellis AG Jeans, Yardley Glasses by Warby Parker, & White Goodfellow Trainers!

The rest of our evening was pretty relaxed; we ordered Indian take away from Seimo Seito with Carolann (Tikka Masala, Assorted Naans, & Seimo Seito Masala), then Ross & Ali joined after overseeing Panto auditions for the Royal Theatre. We sat around the rest of the evening exchanging stories, talking about the plans for the day to follow, & generally having a grand ole time. It wasn’t until one or two AM that we were all off to bed.

End Of Day Two

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Day Three

The Saturday started about 9 AM with a briefing on the day’s plans from the Donowhos & a cuppa. Ali had a midday set in Stranraer in addition to an evening set in Loch Raven. The plan for me on the other hand was to grab some brekkie, go to band practice, & then make my way to Stranraer where we were to stay the night after my 7 PM set & interview. So having keys in hand & having said goodbye to the Donowhos, wishing Ali lucking in my own special way, we went in search for breakfast in the Dumfries town square.

I can’t recall the place we originally planned to dine but they were closed for whatever reason, so we ended up at Elevenses. I ordered a London Fog, which was on special, & Evan had a cappuccino, both were excellent! For breakfast I had the “Flower Of Scotland” which was basically their Full Scottish Breakfast, Haggis, Tattie Scones, & All! By the time we finished our brunch it was time to head over to the rehearsal space which was a studio just south of the town center.

We arrived just before noon where we were greeted by Ross who informed us that our guitarist for the day, Finlay, had unfortunately missed his bus out of Glasgow & was now running two hours behind. So we rolled with it. I played acoustic, Ross drums, & Ruairi played bass & we just went through the set top to bottom taking the time to make changes & corrections along the way. We had a brief break before Finlay arrived & we ran through the songs once more before throwing all of the gear in the rental & beginning the hour & a half trek to Stranraer.

If any of you have read my previous travel blogs in which I have travelled to The United Kingdom, you will know that I have a great love for a little smokehouse off the route to Stranraer/Port Patrick. It used to go by Marrbury Smokehouse but has since changed hands & now boasts the name OakHill Cafe & Deli. Their smoked salmon is still equally as delightful as before & feeling a bit peckish along the way we just managed to squeeze in before closing time to snag one of their incredible Smoked Salmon Sandwiches. Don’t worry, they pre-make them daily so we didn’t put anyone to work at closing time on our behalf.

We arrived in Stranraer around 5:15 & immediately headed to Agnew Park to check in. Having received our festival wrist bands, dropped gear, & squaring everything away with the festival promotion team, who are lovely by the way, we went to drop our stuff off at the hotel & get changed for the show.

My set was at 7 PM, as aforementioned above, but I think we ended up taking the stage closer to 7:10. I had planned a forty-five minute set that actually ended up being perfectly timed on my behalf actually cutting a few songs before we even rang the first notes. I did an acoustic set in the middle of the overall full band set just to break things up & give the band a bit of a break but over all I was more than happy with how the show went & how it turned out! After we finished I helped the guys pack up their things, took my guitar back to the room, & returned to enjoy the festivities.

Of course the OOTD photoshoot had to happen, so that was also a part of the evening. For my set I had wore an Oversized Jackson Brand White T-Shirt (RIP) under a Mauve Suede Zara Jacket with Light Wash Tellis AG Jeans (noticing a trend here?), & the Goodfellow White Trainers.

After the brief shoot I was due for an interview with Jinx Sullivan of DG9 Radio. I always enjoy my interviews with Jinx because she always asks the most interesting questions! When she last interviewed me she had brought a rolodex of questions that we just kept going through because we were having so much fun with the interview, I think it ended up being at least an hour long though. This time I think we ended up talking for 30-45 minutes, recorded that is, we continued to talk after for a long while before my hunger once again set in & I needed to search the streets for sustenance.

My first time in Stranraer I was introduced to Curry, Cheese, & Chips after my set. It was love at first bite & also somewhat very familiar due to its similarity to Poutine here in the States & Maneet Chauhan having Tandoori Chicken Poutine on her Chauhan menu. It felt like something I needed to carry on as a new tradition though. So with that in mind we ended up at Istanbul Kebab & Pizza House where we both got an order of Curry, Cheese, & Chips only this time with Kebab Chicken added to it! It smacked. Truly, truly smacked.

We hung around the festival a bit longer, taking in several of the other acts, before we headed back to the hotel to tuck in for the night. I suppose its also worth noting that what had started as an afternoon in the high seventies had ended in an evening in the high 40s, so we were also a tad freezing & caught unprepared for the chill.

End Of Day Three

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END OF PART ONE

Blog: Just Another Late Night

On a chilly November Wednesday evening, back in 2017, gathered around my kitchen table with Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino was where “Just Another Late Night” was originally conceptualized. The title had been a note in my phone for even longer & for whatever reason the timing was right for this midweek write. Back in 2017 Kate, Evan, Kimi Most, & I used to do weekly Wednesday night writes. This song came out of one of those sessions as well as Kimi’s “Happy Birthday To Me," a song called “Dumb Drunk Self” that I still desperately hope Kate cuts, & innumerable other songs that we each have sitting on the shelf waiting for the timing to be right on their potential tracking. Given that she is not credited on this song, Kimi was obviously not a part of this particular week’s write for whatever reason so it became a collaboration between the three of us.

I remember writing down the title in my notes as almost exactly how it ended up “I need someone that will love me right, not just another late night.” To me the song sparks a memory from the early 2010s but for whatever reason I still hadn't found that “someone who would love me right.” Naturally it had been a while since any of the events in the memory had taken place but I still felt deeply attached to the idea & the song kind of poured out of us in the session.

From there the song became a staple in my set, I’ve been playing it in live settings ever since that night in 2017. I played it so much & so often that people who came to a lot of my sets began to know the words & I would get asked over & over when I planned to release it but for whatever reason it just kept getting pushed down the “to record” list. Cue 2020/2021.

I had just put out the acoustic mix of “Obliterated” & had gone in to record another song that is as of yet, still to be released. We wrapped the song & I felt I needed to put out something with a little more movement, enter “Just Another Late Night.” Going back in studio with Josh Gleave, we set out to finally bringing “Just Another Late Night” to life.

I wanted “Just Another Late Night” to feel almost like two separate songs because in the song, much like in life, we have moments of waining clarity. The verses act as the “quiet before the storm” that is each encounter the chorus brings. The verses are much more reserved allowing more space for the clock & hours to tick by in reflection. The chorus is cacophonous, it’s rambunctious & wild. It’s unhinged & without hesitation. Then we come to the bridge. The bridge to me is the “eye of the hurricane” it’s nothing but vocal & percussion that features a begging ultimatum from the narrator of the story. I wanted the song to reflect life, to have those moments of clarity that we all reflect on after & before the fact before we ultimately buy into the thing that’s destroying us one more time.

We’re now a week int the release of this song that we poured so much love & life into & I’m floored by the response I’ve had for it! Many blogs, playlists, websites, have all reached out asking to feature it. So many people have shared & as of this second we are sitting around 25,000 streams on Spotify!

I’d like to thank any & all of you who were a part of this song:

Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino for helping to write it!

Joshua Gleave for producing & dealing with my crazy artist ideas in addition to bass, keys, synth, & program instruments!

Lester Estelle Jr. for lending his mad drum skills!

Cole Phillips for crushing the guitar!

Jonathan Roye for mixing it so perfectly!

Mike Monseur for mastering!

&

OneRPM for distribution!

If you haven’t streamed or purchased “Just Another Late Night” I’ll drop the link to it here:

As always, thank you for reading! Thank you for allowing me to do the art that I love & be the artist I am!

I’d also love to know your thoughts on the song & how it relates to you personally, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Much love to you all!

-C

Object Writing: Just Another Late Night

Reckless, we might’ve been. we were fearless, cause back then we didn’t care that we would be growing older, playing with aches & age, maybe time made us bolder & young love can’t help but fade away. But still you end up at my place every, single time. You’re always coming back my way when no one’ll hold you tight. I still save space for you, though I should make room for someone that’ll love me right, not just another late night. Tired, but I could sleep, you’re leaving me wired cause trying to keep a handle on the way that you need to use me. God, I must be insane. Somehow you phase right though the walls that I think I’ve made. But still you end up at my place every, single time. You’re always coming back my way when no one’ll hold you tight. I still save space for you, though I should make room for someone that’ll love me right, not just another late night. Please leave the keys with me next time you run cause I need to close the door on us. But still you’ll end up at my place every, single time. You’re always coming back my way when no one’ll hold you tight. I still save space for you, though I should make room for someone that’ll love me right, not just another late night.

Object Writing: Fireflies

The mid-summer haze plants the seed of their terrestrial bound, celestial display. Lofted delicately into the air by humidity & paper thin wings they begin their musing spectacle of courtship. They paint ever shifting, continuously rearranging constellations upon the evening air, flashing their messages of availability & attraction, pining for those hidden in the vivacious green below. These fireflies are the first signal of summer; the first indicator that Ostara has ended her great, bounding resurrection & has passed her revitalized bounty off to Sol, lengthen the days & bleeding warmth into night. I’ve always been overjoyed by the presence of these, their comfort hangs in the air along side the heat of the day, enrobing me in a truly childlike sense of imagination & wanderlust. It’s my greatest pleasure to know them & an indescribable gift to witness their light.

Blog: Why You Should Be Pre-Saving Releases From Independent Artists

Hiya!

I’m sure if many of you are like myself you often find yourself faced with an artist friend or an artist you follow prompting you to pre-save their upcoming release. And if you’re also like myself the first thing to usually go through your mind is “why would I do that? I don’t even know if the song is good or not yet.” Well, I’m here to tell you today, that doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I’m also going to tell you why!

Back in the day, when people were still buying tracks/eps/albums/etc, (which if you’re still doing that, you’re a saint in the eyes of artists & writers) you could often preorder said piece of musical art & that made sense, because it’s like preordering a book or a game or whatever else you may be excited for! It gave the artist distributed the piece a leg up, especially where charts & sales are concerned.

How does this translate to our modern era of streaming?

Well, much like preorders, pre-saves give us as independent artists a leg up in an industry where the charts & playlists often favor the labels & the signed artists. It gives us a behinds the scenes way of saying “this is how many people are already interested in this song on day one, imagine how many more will be when you add it to your super exclusive editorial playlist!” And that counts EVEN IF YOU NEVER LISTEN TO THE SONG!!!

That’s right, you don’t even have to stream the song, the pre-save is enough!

I mean, by all means listen to the song because that’s somebody’s hard work they poured time, love, money, & effort into! It deserves to be heard! You never know, it may end up being your cup of tea too!

I have been hearing more & more independent artists vamping up massive pre-save campaigns just to get the attention of the editorial playlisters on the major music streaming platforms, & you know what, it’s working! Slowly but surely these artists are getting thrown onto major playlists in part because their songs deserve to be there, but a lot of the time because it got flagged as a song of interest simply from the number of pre-saves.

All of this is meant to say help independent artists out & pre-save their releases! It takes like 30 seconds to do & you could be a major boost to their career! In addition to, you know, being a good friend/supporter for those of us out here doing the thing all by our lonesome!

SPEAKING OF….

I have a new single that comes out on June 24th called “Just Another Late Night!” You’d be doing me a humongous favor by going in & pre-saving it to your streaming platform of choice or even all of them you’re a part of if you feel like going above & beyond! I’m going to post the pre-save link below, again, please take thirty seconds more out of the couple minutes you’ve set aside to give this a read & pre-save my next single! It’s a bop, I promise!

Blog: A 12 Week Accelerator & The Offer

Hello loves, how are we today?

Yesterday I finished a 12 week accelerator called the six figure artist. In this class, hosted by Lindsey Kirkendall, me & 10 other artists were put through a series of different tasks over the span of the 12 weeks where we were asked to reframe our thinking & belief systems about what it means to be an artist as a whole, how it’s possible to make money in the current independent artist economy, & what strengths we as artists/individuals bring to the table. In addition to that we were asked to put together an offer that we, as artists, could offer to the public that would add value to the world & help those who are walking the paths we have already trod. This accelerator is where the desire to share my object writing pieces came from, it’s also where past blogs such as Vulnerabilities & Rejection, Curiosity & Experience, Understanding Your Value, &, of course, Object Writing came from. This course also encouraged me to step out of my artistic & personal comfort zone; it got me to audition for a major musical, try on new live streaming platforms & ideas, & pushed me towards expression not hindered by the walls that I’ve built to hide being.

While many people in the course have gone through & are already out selling their respective offers mine is still a work in progress. You see in the group we narrowed down that the thing that makes me tick, the culmination, the shared thread amongst all of my many passions & hobbies, ADHD aside, is experience & curiosity. I am driven to try new things out of another of my defining words, consideration. I want to know how other people live, I want to experience their culture, their passions, I want to, as I’ve stated before, chisel away the marble encasing the man underneath. I think we as humans all do that to some extent, we use experience & curiosity to decide who we are because of the things that light us up, or as Lindsey puts it “flip our skirts up.” So I looked around at this idea of self discovery & wondered what I can do as a knowledge enthusiast to help others discover who they are.

My first offering came in the form of live performance. At the end of the day I am a lover of performing, it’s where I feel the most alive, on a stage. The idea modeled itself off of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” where in I would put on a concert & with the price of admission you would also get to experience some of my favorite things locally. From restaurants to distilleries/breweries/vineyard to shops that help fuel my many hobbies, the idea was a concert that was interactive & a little less formal. Think Sofar Sounds meets a craft fair/farmers market meets a restaurant pop-up shop meets a Q&A session. If this is an idea that “flips your skirt up” don’t worry, I’m in the process of planning one!

That exciting offering aside Lindsey & the group kept coming back to the feeling that I needed to be mentoring people, to offer my rather large knowledge & experience bank up to those who may feel a tad lost or disoriented. There in lies the second offer. The idea behind offer #2 is that I would spend five weeks with a group of individuals under my wing, prompting them to try new things, new ways of thinking, new paths, in the hope of helping them find which direction feels right for them in the next stage of their life. Originally the idea was to aim this at those who are switching from the high school world to that of the collegian. After a talk with my friend Miss Christine, whom I met through the group, they suggested that I bump my ideal participant up to those who are now exiting the college world. They stated that someone in their life had just graduated & was feeling entirely lost after spending the last 18 years of their life entirely entangled in the education system. I get it, I’ve been there, the other side of school is scary especially after we spend 82%-ish of our lives dedicated to it up til that point.

As I said above, the finalized version of this group offering is still a work in progress, but if you feel this is something you &/or someone you love could benefit from, I’d love to offer my assistance!

I truly wanted to just hop on here today & give a little insight into what I’ve been up to the last couple of months & why I’ve been posting the way that I have! Not sure what the next two weeks of posting will look like from me, as I’ll be in the UK, but you can bet there’ll be a travel blog or two to follow when it’s all said & done!

As always I hope you all have fantastic weekends! If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me!

Much love to you all,

-C

Object Writing: Atlas

Deception, pain, punishment, these are all the things that brought me to where I am now; set between the crushing weight of atmosphere & the unrelenting density of earth sprawled out before me. I shift uncomfortable, the literal weight of the world on my shoulders, my knees bleed from the sharp mountain tops forced beneath them. My existence has become suffering, destined to stand tall & strong for an eternity watching life & time slip by. I am cursed, infinitely cursed all because of the need to support those who raised me, who cared for me, who gave me power & purpose in this world. I have been ripped from my lofty throne & thrust into the servitude of Gods that don’t serve me or mine. It is here that I am destined to spend my forever burdened with keeping two loving bodies from one another, doomed to be a passive member of creation, a watcher, a monument of strife, a beacon of warning. I heft the sky father farther away from my mother earth & bear his weight reluctantly all while life goes on without me, all around me, oblivious to the sacrifice I have been forced to make.